FAU grapples with threats in wake of controversies

April 20, 2013|By Scott Travis, Sun Sentinel

Tensions remain on the Florida Atlantic University campus, with students, faculty and administrators each voicing concerns about safety in the aftermath of protests over a failed stadium naming deal and a "step on Jesus' assignment.

FAU officials say they are addressing immediate security needs through campus police and a safety committee as well as creating a website and a lecture series on the importance of civility.

In the past week alone, the university has dealt with multiple allegations of threats and harassment.

On Tuesday, Angela Graham-West, a member of the Board of Trustees, alleged she was being harassed by an unidentified student.

On Wednesday, student Stephanie Rosendorf filed a police report accusing Graham-West's husband, former U.S. Rep. Allen West, of making threats on his Facebook page.

On Thursday, President Mary Jane Saunders' secretary reported to police she received an anonymous call from a man who said he was going to "come down and get" Rosendorf.

And on Friday, Provost Brenda Claiborne told the Faculty Senate that instructor Deandre Poole and others at FAU had received "literally thousands of threatening emails" related to the Feb. 25 assignment in which Poole asked students to step on a piece of paper with Jesus written on it.

The situation has become so volatile that police are now stationed in Saunders' office, and she has a bodyguard. "It's very difficult for me as president to have to be guarded walking around my own university," Saunders said Friday.

Her worries began on March 22, when she said stadium-naming protesters barricaded her car and then her vehicle clipped a student. Police did not to file charges, and no one was disciplined.

But the anger and heated language has continued.

Several trustees, including financial adviser Graham-West, complained that students protesting the GEO Group stadium deal showed up at their workplaces before the prison company withdrew its $6 million gift. She said one of the protesters told her: "You think you're as tough as your husband, don't you?" referring to Allen West. She was upset when she saw the protester again at a trustees meeting Tuesday.

West went on Facebook Wednesday to warn protesters, "if Angela calls and tells me of one more incident, you will face me, the side of me that you do not want to see."

Stephanie Rosendorf, a former president of the College Democrats, said West's remarks constituted a threat to student safety. She said she's been inundated with threatening, anti-Semitic and lewd emails since she filed the police report. A commenter on West's Facebook page posted her home address and information about her parents.

"I was very frightened," she said. "I didn't know if someone was going to show up at my house."